Lady Mary Wortley Montague eBook

An uneventful existence—­Montagu’s
Parliamentary duties take him to London—­Lady
Mary stays mostly in the country—­Correspondence—­Montagu
a careless husband, but very careful of his money—­Later
he becomes a miser—­Lady Mary does not disguise
the tedium of her existence—­ Concerning
a possible reconciliation with her father—­Lord
Pierrepont of Hanslope—­Lord Halifax—­Birth
of a son, christened after his father, Edward Wortley
Montagu—­The mother’s anxiety about
his health—­Family events—­Lady
Evelyn Pierrepont marries Baron (afterwards Earl) Gower—­Lady
Frances Pierrepont marries the Earl of Mar—­Lord
Dorchester marries again—­Has issue, two
daughters—­the death of Lady Mary’s
brother, William—­His son, Evelyn, in due
course succeeds to the Dukedom of Kingston—­Elizabeth
Chudleigh—­The political situation in 1714—­The
death of Queen Anne—­The accession of George
I—­The unrest in the country—­
Lady Mary’s alarm for her son.

The records for the first years of the married life
of Edward and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu are scanty
indeed. From the wedding day until 1716, when
they went abroad, Lady Mary’s life was, for months
together, as uneventful as that of the ordinary suburban
housewife. Montagu’s parliamentary duties
took him frequently to town, and kept him there for
prolonged periods, during which he certainly showed
no strong desire for her to join him. Lady Mary,
indeed, spent most of the time in the country.
Sometimes she stayed at the seat of her father-in-law,
Wharncliffe Lodge, near Sheffield; occasionally she
visited Lord Sandwich at Hinchinbrooke; for a while
they stayed at Middlethorpe, in the neighbourhood
of Bishopthorpe and York. From time to time they
hired houses in other parts of Yorkshire. The
honeymoon lasted from August until October, 1712,
when Montagu had to go to Westminster.

The first letter of this period is dated characteristically:
“Walling Wells, October 22, which is the first
post I could write. Monday night being so fatigued
and sick I went straight to bed from the coach.”
It starts:

“I don’t know very well how to begin;
I am perfectly unacquainted with a proper matrimonial
stile. After all, I think ’tis best to write
as if we were not married at all. I lament your
absence, as if you were still my lover, and I am impatient
to hear you are got safe to Durham, and that you have
fixed a time for your return.”

Marriage made Lady Mary more human. She no longer
dwelt upon the various points that in her maidenhood
days she had thought would be conducive to happiness
in matrimonial life; she was now, anyhow for the moment,
in love with her husband, or at least persuaded herself
that this was the case, and was at pains to inform
him of the fact.